Town Approves $20,000 Contract for Richmond Hill Road Sidewalk Project

The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday voted in favor of a $20,000 contract with a Meriden-based company to help with a project that will take advantage of the state’s plan for a summer-long shutdown of the Metro-North Railroad’s New Canaan branch line.

The town for years has planned to install a new sidewalk on Richmond Hill Road between the exit from Mead Park to Marshall Ridge Road. The project is receiving funding through a state Local Transportation Capital Improvement Program or “LOTCIP” grant, and as of last fall, the last major piece was securing permissions from multiple agencies on how the new pedestrian route would cross the railroad tracks on Richmond Hill.

The new contract with Meriden-based Cardinal Engineering Associates is designed to “bring the Richmond Hill Road sidewalk project through its final phases of the grant requirements,” according to Public Works Director Tiger Mann.

“We have a window of opportunity this June, July and August when the rail bed will be shut down, to be able to do the work across the rail bed and then finish the sidewalk,” Mann told the selectmen during their regular meeting, held at Town Hall and via videoconference. “We don’t want to miss that opportunity, so we met with Cardinal Engineering as far as having them work with us as a LOTCIP coordinator to try to help expedite us through the last final design phases and the specification work to then bring this project to fruition.”

First Selectman Kevin Moynihan and Selectmen Kathleen Corbet and Nick Williams voted 3-0 in favor of the contract. 

Williams said, “As a commuter, I’m certainly not looking forward to the summer closing although it presents I think Tiger an opportunity.”

The Connecticut Department of Transportation announced last month that the New Canaan branch would be shut down for four months, from May 30 through August, “due to track improvements.”

The selectmen asked whether the state’s railroad project will involve work in New Canaan or just Stamford (don’t know, we just know the rail bed will be closed), whether the state plans to change anything with respect to the rail line as it is crossed at Richmond Hill (nothing in the near future) and whether there’s concern that the state’s work on the rail will not align with the plans for the sidewalk (no).

“Basically what they have to do for us is there’s a black pad that sits in the rail bed so that you don’t go in and out through the ballast,” Mann said. “That pad has to be extended. The rail bed will still sit within that pad structure, it won’t be moving laterally that far.”

Williams said the state’s work may give the town a chance to clear away some of the trash that collects along the railroad corridor—a periodic complaint from residents. Mann agreed, saying town workers are to undergo training that will allow them to clear up the rail bed itself in addition to taking care of the two stations in New Canaan.

Citing safety concerns, about 70 neighborhood families in December 2018 signed a petition requesting a sidewalk on Richmond Hill Road. (In 2020, a 13-year-old boy was struck by a car while walking on Richmond Hill Road to his bus stop; the following summer, a 15-year-old girl was struck along Richmond Hill Road.) In January 2019, the town approved a contract for an engineering firm to design it, and the area has been surveyed with the sidewalks themselves designed. Public Works has already secured a positive 8-24 Municipal Improvement report from the Planning & Zoning Commission.